• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Figure on Illegal Logging Outdated

Posted on: Tuesday, 6 September 2005, 00:00 CDT

I AM more than a little surprised to read the statement attributed to the

Deputy Prime Minister in your editorial (NST, Sept 2) that 35 per cent of

Malaysia's 2004 timber exports were "illegal". I wonder how this figure

was derived. These are statistics and it is reasonable for one to

question how and where this figure was obtained.

This magic figure of 35 per cent keeps cropping up maddeningly, without

any justification. After having this figure thrown at the timber

industry's face many times, we did a check.

The first mention of this figure was in the book Bad Harvest (page 52),

published in 1995. The source quoted by the authors of Bad Harvest for

the 35 per cent figure was a paper entitled "Illegal Tropical Timber

Trade: Asia-Pacific"(Callister), published in 1992. An estimated 1992

figure is being quoted by all and sundry to this day, a space of almost

13 years!

Ask any person with a proper understanding of the Malaysian forestry

sector and even some non-governmental organisations in Malaysia and they

would agree that in the past 13 years there has been vast improvements in

forest law enforcement and in progress towards sustainable forest

management in Malaysia. Surely, there is a very good chance that the

figure of 35 per cent illegal logging calculated in 1992 for tropical

timber-producing countries (and used on Malaysia) may be very outdated by

now?

While we laud the efforts at weeding out illegal loggers, we think it

would be very unfair if outdated figures continue to be used to indicate

illegal logging in Malaysia and supposition of percentage of "illegal"

exports.

Perhaps it needs explaining that the term "illegal logging" covers

three categories:

* Category 1 covers offences involving logging without licence, logging

outside licensed areas and unauthorised construction of infrastructure

and forest roads.

* Category 2 covers encroachment of forest reserves for agricultural

activities and settlement.

* Category 3 covers other forest offences involving felling of unmarked

trees, cutting trees below the cutting limit, unlicensed workers,

contractors with no valid sub-licence, unregistered machinery and other

breaches of rules and regulations committed within and outside the forest

reserve.

For example, a worker who does not carry a Malaysian identity card with

him in the forest or who is not registered with the Forestry Department

to work in the forest concession would be deemed to have committed an

offence under Category 3.

More clarity is needed on the figures that make up the different

categories of offences before we can conclude that serious offences

(Category 1) have increased drastically. Perhaps it was not mentioned

that the increase in the number of cases was also due to an increase in

the number of forest patrols, from 3,223 in 2003 to 5,238 in 2004 and

6,214 from January-July 2005.

AIMI LEE ABDULLAH

for Malaysian Timber Council

Source: New Straits Times

More News in this Category